Update: the non-opensource edition of VirtualBox 2.2, still not included in Jaunty, will enable you to skip all of this hassle; it’ll set up a bridged connection for you automatically. However, for 2.1, this still applies.

Many of you may know the OpenSource alternative to the proprietary VMWare solution. Sun’s VirtualBox is very fast and feature-complete enough to substitute most of VMWare’s functionalities. I use it at work since more than a year with wonderful results, both to virtualize Windows under GNU/Linux, or GNU/Linux under Windows.

However, network configuration isn’t as obvious as it should, since NetworkManager doesn’t support bridge-ing interfaces by default. Herein, you’ll find a short tutorial on how to enable your virtual machine to access the Internet when hosted inside a GNU/Linux OS using NetworkManager.